Tis the season: Fair diaries!

matt
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 4:18 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by matt »

Wow! Well-said Psyguy. I've been lurking on this forum for a long time, with an occasional post here and there but you speak the truth about international schools with all their ugly blemishes but also about the beautiful lifestyle they can provide for teachers who are able to make a career overseas.
senator
Posts: 384
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:53 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by senator »

Ok, Guys.

Again, I must have struck a BIG nerve to have so much venom spat in my direction.

Enjoy those $35,000 (maybe) for 12 years of experience TAXED salaries, horrible health insurance, low retirement contributions.

I hope you don't end up moving in with your kids when you're in your sixties, connected to an oxygen tank from all of those years ingesting poison at a "Tier 1" school in China or Manila or...and no international school will hire you.

(And I mean this sincerely, not as a poor joke. SO DON'T REPLY SAYING I AM WISHING YOU POOR HEALTH OR POVERTY - I WOULD NEVER WISH THAT ON ANYONE!

I just really don't think a lot of you have thought through the health and financial consequences of the decision to remain at the majority of international schools. Short term rewards over long term).
speedracer
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue May 28, 2013 9:31 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by speedracer »

Everyone here seems to argue extremes.

I can see both sides of the issue.

Is there a worry about air quality, discrimination and pension in overseas schools --- yes

But after a short international career, I'm teaching at a public school in Florida. I haven't has a pay rise in years! The FRS is terrible here and the amount of paperwork is crushing.

Also students take three rounds of tests per year. We have pre-diagnostics, mid-diagnostics, and final exams. Plus every course now has to have an End of Course exam. Students are testing a solid 2 months out of the school year

I long to go back overseas (hoepfully in a few years)

HOWEVER, I too worry about the retirement of many international teachers, especially with scams like SCI and Friends Provident out there. but it you do it yourself you might be better off


everything is a trade off
shadowjack
Posts: 2138
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by shadowjack »

LOL Senator, don't know which schools you are at. Most ITs I know at decent schools make north of 50K and the schools are either covering taxes or giving other perks which help to ameliorate the tax, such as free housing, utilities etc which help make taxes much easier to bear.

Our health insurance is global (or you pay a bit extra to have full coverage in North America). As for retirement contributions, if you play it right, why would you worry? If you don't, well, shame on you.

If you are a solid teacher and choose to teach, there are indeed places you can teach after 60 - if you want to.

As for the oxygen tank - if you are aware of the issues and take precautions, why would you worry about an oxygen tank - unless you are a smoker, of course!

In the meantime, we bank a decent 6 figure savings a year, while traveling 2 or 3 times a year to great destinations not named Mexico or Dominican Republic or Hawaii. Meanwhile, most of the people we know back home are still paying their mortgage, living their daily lives, not really doing much travel because they can't afford to, and telling us, "When I retire..."

just my two cents,

shad
senator
Posts: 384
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:53 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by senator »

Well, Shadowjack,

I guess all of those school websites listing salaries/benefits are lowballing their actual values because...I can't think of why. And all of the Search and ISS databases are way off, too, huh? And my experience and the experience of all my IT friends is not correct, right?

I will say that if you are in that small minority who keep their mouths shut, ignore any and all injustice, and pretty much kiss admin and parent butt, you probably can get work at one of the very few schools that allow good savings and pay taxes and provide good housing and...

And if you honestly believe that wearing a 3M mask can save you...come on, man! How do you take precautions against eating? Just don't eat local fruits or vegetables or beef or pork or chicken or...?

Do you actually know anyone in China or...?

Nobody knows what effect these poisons have on a person so forget your "take precautions" baloney.I just hope that you don't have to find out later in life that your liver has been worked so hard clearing garbage from your body that it won't work anymore.

I think that every admin type who monitors this site must be drooling. They must have gone to their school boards and owners and told them to cut teacher salaries and benefits big because there are so many international teachers who will do absolutely anything for a job.

And Stop writing "LOL"! What are you, a 13 year old girl on Twitter?!
SafariDude
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 2:42 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by SafariDude »

I think people sometimes forget that the world, while it may seem small, actually has a lot of different types of experiences. In Asia we saved a ton of money, loved the culture and traveling cheaply. Then we moved to W. Europe a dream at the time that quickly turned way too expensive for us. While it was amazing to see Amsterdam, Paris, London, Belgium, Vienna, Rome, Florence, Venice and Prague, we were unable to save any money in the 4 years that we were there. We didn't dip into savings like most, be we also lived in a tiny box of an apartment. In Africa we are also able to save, travel cheap and see amazing cultures. IT is what you make of it. There is no perfect spot. There are good and bad at each and every one of them. The key to being successful is to focus on what you were hired to do and use your free time to do what you've always want to do.

Good luck to all those at the fairs. Remember to smile, ask a lot of questions and be honest. Often times it really is like taking a leap of faith.
shadowjack
Posts: 2138
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by shadowjack »

Senator, not sure what you are implying. My friends and I are people who tend to do our homework, have been on the circuit a long time, worked our way up from the lower tiers and, while we might go to a school with a lower package because of other factors, such as interest, opportunity, or the chance to work with someone we view as good to work with, generally we are all in the 50K and above band. I tended not to interview with schools that don't offer good packages and I tended to get hired by schools I interviewed with, or at least was a viable candidate where I felt I was at least in the running.

ITs make a choice to go to a school, whether because they want a certain area, want a certain position, want certain opportunities or get desperate or hate the unknown so take the first offer that comes along. Note I have only been to one job fair in my life despite teaching internationally for awhile now, so I am not sure. Usually I knew I wanted to work in an area and either used my IT contacts or contacted the school directly after scoping the place out on ISR and asking other friends on the circuit.

I don't kiss admin or parent butt. I also don't ignore injustice - I don't work at schools that require this (in fact I have left a school because of this) - but there are quite a few schools out there with decent packages and good savings opportunities and benefits. I am sorry that you seem not to have found any of them, but not sorry that I managed to find them. They might not always be in your top destination, but I have never worked at a bad school and have no interest in doing so. I have also made a wide range of friends that I stay in touch with and also students that have morphed into friends over the years as social networking allows us to share our new life experiences, which is really neat, compared to when I first started in IT (and in teaching quite a few years before that).

As for that 3M mask and eating - I could ask you the same! Do you eat apples? Most pesticided fruit on earth. Do you buy food from the grocery store? Factory farms where profit, not nutrition, is the bottom line. Veggies and fruits I eat now burst with flavour and I can afford to buy organic meat and veg.

As for knowing people in China, and India, and Korea, and Malaysia, and the Emirates and Africa and Europe and the Middle East and in North America who are teaching in schools - absolutely. Many of them. I am aware of the reality, but I get my news firsthand from them, not from the newspaper 1000's of miles away which sensationalises news to sell papers.

Of course nobody knows what effects all the food additives plastics, GMO's and environmental hazards in general have on our bodies (and here I am alluding to the United States, which seems to generally take the manufacturer's word on things until proven otherwise, which wasn't always the case). I suspect that our generation and our children's generation might NOT live as long as predicted due to the factors I have mentioned. But it isn't just overseas that this is a hazard in, and for you to pretend otherwise is a bit simplistic, isn't it?

As for those "admin types" who you seem to stereotype, let them go and drool about reducing their packages. With the glut on the IT market given the economic climate in the home countries, they might be right. But the kind of schools I seem to end up realize that you need to give quality to get quality, be quality to get quality, and treat with quality in order to retain quality. As I mentioned before, I am sorry that you never ended up at a school like that - it might have changed your whole outlook on international teaching. Looking at where some teachers end up, I do think there are quite a few teachers overseas who are pretty clueless and think it is just like teaching back home, "except in an exciting country!" LOL Thank goodness my friends and I are a bit more realistic and are willing to share information between us.

As to stop writing LOL - why? LOL! Just to make you happy? LOL ;-) <-- :-D LOL
Trojan
Posts: 147
Joined: Wed Oct 29, 2008 10:09 am
Contact:

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by Trojan »

Well, boys and girls, those were some pretty crappy fair diaries.

;-)
shadowjack
Posts: 2138
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by shadowjack »

LOL Trojan. We like where we are and it matches our criteria laid out above, so we are staying put. I was hoping to see if anything about the fairs had changed since we went in 2013.

Guess not.
Climberman
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 7:29 pm

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by Climberman »

@senator and shadowjack:

I think you both are right.

As shadowjack says, IF you are one of the lucky few who can stay in the circuit and work up to good schools with good salaries/benefits in countries with good saving potential, you can retire well or continue to work in your 60's because you will have enough money saved so that you don't have to worry about only being able to get a job at a top school.

Senator is speaking for the majority, those of us who, for whatever reason, always have to fight for a job and worry about being stuck in the overseas circuit, bouncing from one mediocre or BAD school to another. In a system where references rule, it seems that all it takes is for the right admin person to screw you over and that is the ballgame, even if you are in a high demand subject with experience, like me.

Even the oft reviled Psyguy seems to agree with senator that international education is a very capricious enterprise where reason and logic often do not factor into a lot of decisions by school heads.

I am holding judgement until this recruiting season is over, but it may turn out that I ditch international education in favor of staying at a good school in the U.S. and take senator's advice and satisfy my taste for travel and culture by traveling for 8-10 weeks during my summer holiday.
Glerky
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:09 am
Location: Middle of the East

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by Glerky »

I feel a lot dumber after reading... sorry skimming, most of these posts. I was actually hoping for a fair diary and instead got this pseudo-intellectual argument. Come on class... ON TASK!
Rob
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Nov 12, 2012 3:07 am

Re: Tis the season: Fair diaries!

Post by Rob »

I think Climberman is correct. This is all my opinion of course. I recently left full time teaching after 42 years, with about 36 of those years in international schools. I'm still very interested in hearing from others about their experience after being part of this life style and career so many years.

The majority of the schools overseas are mediocre schools that frankly just don't allow you to save a great deal for retirement, especially when most teachers don't stay there long enough to work their way up the salary scale. However, once you land a school that is a tier one school, as I did in Singapore, you hold on to it. Yet, I had friends and colleagues at this school who taught more than 25 years there, and referred to their situation as being in "golden handcuffs". You want to leave, but the benefits are too good to do so. You end up staying longer than you should. I don't think you have this problem in the States, but you certainly have others. In the States, public schools seem to recognize your years of experience, and even as a new teacher, puts you on the salary scale where you should be.

I've always mixed teaching overseas with coming back to the States to teach. I taught in Vietnam during the war, and then returned to the States to teach. I was in in Iran for 2 years (time of the Shah), and then returned to the States to teach for a year. I did the same in Saudi Arabia, Korea, Liberia, Venezuela, and stopped doing that in Singapore for quite a few years. Why? It was a great school to be in, but I was there, as others were, longer than anywhere else, mostly for the benefits and salary. However, it was a great experience.

It was only after being there for 19 years that I felt I could return to the States for a year to teach, which I did, only to head to Egypt, Jordan and Vietnam (again) for teaching stints. Just returned to the States a year ago at the age of 66. Now I'm older than schools want, and I think I like that.

I mention all this because no one say once you are overseas, you can still have teaching experiences in the States. However, once you find that special school overseas, you really want to hold onto it. The problem is, there is always an unknown factor with someone in admin you may have conflicts with, and he can be unjust toward you. There is no union to protect you as in the States.

I've ramble here, but just thought I'd share my two cents.

Rob
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